Peyton Hillis: Browns lied to me, turned the fans against me
August 25, 2015The Songs of the Summer of 2015: WFNY Makes Lists
August 25, 2015Carlos Santana has been having an interesting season at the plate. In his most recent stretch of games, he only has three hits in the last 26 plate appearances (3-for-21 with four walks), but he has made each of those hits count. Santana had two home runs over the weekend against the New York Yankees, and, on Monday, he hit a ninth inning single off of left-hander Jon Lester to tie the game against the Chicago Cubs at one run. However, on the season, Carlos Santana has seen nearly all of his numbers drop from his career averages, which has led many fans to wonder if there is something wrong with him, and if he can regain his past form.
In fact, Carlos Santana has been subject to season-long fan consternation as he has not lived up to the lofty expectations that he had set for himself nor did even those previous statistics fit the traditional middle of the order hitter. The one point on which every fan of the Indians should agree is that getting back to those career norms would be better than what has been exhibited from him thus far in 2015.
Now, in order to properly assess the future of Carlos Santana, we must take a careful step-by-step approach to dissect his statistics as was done last week that (sadly) predicted some potential bumps in the road for Danny Salazar.
Note: All statistics are from fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted. The rankings for first basemen are for the 29 who had a minimum of 300 plate appearances in 2015. All statistics are through August 23.
What is he doing?
It is easy to see what type of hitter Carlos Santana has been in 2015 from these statistics. He is a patient hitter, as is seen from his high OBP (on base percentage). Santana is a good contact hitter, as is seen from his relatively low K% (strikeout percentage). However, that contact is not always ideal, which is seen in his low batting average.
Also, it is important to see that he is currently a below average hitter for a first baseman in 2015. His wRC+ of 108 is above the overall league average (98), so it is fair to state that he is still a useful hitter (and there have been far bigger issues hitting for the 2015 Cleveland Indians). However, Santana is below average among his positional peers. As a middle of the order hitter for the Indians, Santana was being relied on to be an above average hitter, and his struggles to meet those expectations have negatively affected the offense.
WFNY’s Jacob Rosen recently made an observation about a specific area where Carlos Santana was struggling.
Carlos Santana v. LHP:
2013 – .299/.377/.487 in 212 PA
2014 – .271/.395/.469 in 215 PA
2015 – .245/.348/.288 in 164 PA— Jacob L. Rosen (@JacobLRosen) August 19, 2015
As can be seen in both Jacob’s tweet and the corresponding expanded and updated table, Carlos Santana has greatly struggled against LHPs (left handed pitchers) this season. While his batting average is actually over 30 points higher,1 the switch-hitting Santana has had virtually no power from the right side of the plate. He has been able to keep his soft% (soft contact rate) somewhat down, but he also has not hit the ball hard2 nor does he get any lift on the ball. The end result is that Santana is a below average hitter and not just a below average first baseman when facing LHP.
From the left side of the plate when facing RHP, Santana’s statistics look much more in line with what has been expected from him. He has a low batting average, but makes up for it with a high OBP and good power3 . His 30 extra base hits and 14 home runs facing RHP sit in stark contrast to the mere seven extra base hits and one home run against LHP. But, Santana’s soft% of 26% is disconcerting, which is likely contributing to his low BABIP of .223.
What has he done?
As noted above, Santana has never been a great batting average type of hitter. However, he has been great at getting on base, and his slugging4 has also been consistently high. As a result, his overall value5 has demonstrated that he has been a valid middle of the order hitter before 2015.
Against RHP, Santana has maintained a rather consistent stat line. His ISO has actually been rising a bit, but it has been mirrored by a fall in batting average. On the whole, though, he has maintained himself as an above average hitting first baseman when facing RHP in each of the past four seasons, including 2015.
Against LHP, Santana’s statistics are a bit more volatile, but he had always crushed LHP to a much larger degree than he had RHP. In each season since 2012, his batting average, OBP, SLG, and wRC+ were higher when he batted from the right side of the plate. Therefore, facing a LHP from 2012 through 2014 was the strength of Carlos Santana even for those who might just want to see his batting average rise.
It is especially galling that facing LHP now looks to be a significant weakness for Santana. Unlike Yan Gomes, he does not have an obvious injury to which he can attribute the downfall. In fact, his similar numbers against RHP seem to suggest that he is not hiding an injury either6 . He has had some recent success here — Santana’s first home run of 2015 against a lefty was over the weekend against the Yankees, and his game tying RBI single on Monday was against the left-handed Jon Lester — but the overall body of work is disconcerting.
The above heat maps show the catcher’s view of Carlos Santana’s ISO when facing LHP. The map on the left side is what he had been doing from 2012 through 2014. Santana did not particularly crush any one location of pitch, but he did a good job covering the entire plate other than the high inside corner and low outside corner (the toughest places for any hitter to handle). However, in 2015 (right side map), Santana loses almost all of that coverage. Left-handed pitchers have been mostly able to freely pitch to any portion of the plate without worry of Santana getting a hold of it.
Why is he having these problems?
Well, what we expect that Santana might do is in the future rooted in his overall trends, and, unfortunately, Santana does have a couple of troubling ones.
First, his overall soft% has been steadily on the rise over the past four seasons. As we learned in a previously, soft% leads to easy outs and at a rate even greater than hard% leads to hits as a measure of BABIP. Even worse though, from 2014 to 2015, Santana has done a direct trade of four percent hard contact to soft contact. The question then shifts to why he might be having more soft contact, which is why I included is swinging statistics.
Santana has kept a rather stable batting eye. His O-Swing% (swings at balls outside the strike zone) has stayed around 22% his entire career7 . But Santana is making a bit less contact on those pitches outside the zone (O-Con%). Santana is also swinging a bit less at pitches inside the strike zone as shown by his Z-Swing%. However, when he does swing, he is making contact more often as his career-best Z-Con% indicates. In fact, he has less swinging strikes in 2015 than he has had in any other point of his career.
Oftentimes, hitters who lose bat speed will still be able to make contact, but they will not be able to make the same level of contact, which would explain the statistics seen for Santana above. When bat speed drops, it is extremely difficult to gain it back (unless it is due to injury). However, if reduced bat speed is the culprit, then it would be expected to see his numbers drop against four-seam and two-seam fastballs, which8 we can investigate.
Despite small sample sizes for 2015 against LHP, Santana has still shown an ability to handle fastballs inside, outside, low, and high. There is more blue on the chart for 2015, in particular on the inside of portion of the plate, but he has actually handled middle-out four-seam fastballs better this season versus LHP.
Furthermore, against LHP, this table confirms that Santana is still raking four-seam fastballs. He has traded some power for average, but he is actually still doing fine against the most common pitch he sees. The high BABIP here suggests that he is also hitting the pitches hard enough. His power completely disappears though against the two-seam fastball and curveball, and, correspondingly, his BABIP also falls off indicating he has struggled to hit these pitches.
It is possible that his bat speed has slowed, but the data seems to suggest that Santana is sitting on the four-seam fastball, and he is struggling with pitch recognition from LHP.
Against RHP, Santana actually has struggled to maintain his batting average against both the four-seam and two-seam fastballs. However, in both cases, his isolated power numbers indicate that he is hitting the ball hard at times. Again, that data does not suggest a decreased bat speed, but a specific approach against RHP fastballs. In that he is “swinging for the fences.” That approach9 also lends itself to why his power would drop off with offspeed pitches because he’s likely swinging early on them.
The first thing that sticks out when comparing Santana in 2015 versus the previous three seasons is again the ISO column against LHP. Santana hit fastballs for good power, but absolutely destroyed curveballs. LHP have adjusted to throwing the curve less often to him(down two percent), but he has not been able to hit it for average or power as he did in the past. In addition, LHP have taken to throwing him more two-seam fastballs (up two percent), and they have done so with more success.
So, how did a batter that used to be so good at pitch recognition from LHP lose that ability? That is an answer that I wish that I could provide here, but, sadly, cannot.
RHP seem to be giving Santana more four-seam fastballs now. He was always a low average, high power hitter on those against RHP, so it appears to be a trade-off that opposing teams are comfortable giving him. Oddly, the reduction in pitch type comes from less curveballs thrown by RHP, which Santana has never hit for average or power. Overall against RHP, the table further validates that Santana has maintained his power against RHP though it also demonstrates that he used to have much more power against change ups, which could be another pitch recognition problem.
Conclusions
Overall, Carlos Santana is still a useful hitter. A batter with a 108 wRC+ is still an above average MLB guy who will help a team more than he hurts it. However, he is also a below average hitting first baseman who used to hit much better. So the frustration with his 2015 is warranted based on the expectations that he has set for himself through his previous play.
Now, it does not appear that he has an injury, his bat speed does not seem to have slowed, and both his batting eye for strike recognition and contact rates have remained. But, Santana has seemingly struggled with pitch recognition, in particular against left-handers, against whom he has only hit four-seam fastballs well. Those happen to be the most popular pitch he will see, but he needs to figure out how to get back to crushing the rest of the offerings from LHP if he is going to get back to being the Carlos Santana that Indians fans watched from 2012 to 2014.
- Largely due to a nearly 70 point higher BABIP [↩]
- So, he gets mostly medium or normal contact rate. [↩]
- As seen in his ISO [↩]
- and correlated ISO [↩]
- Shown by any of Off, WAR, or wRC+ [↩]
- Note: this is mere speculation and there could be an injury that is affecting him more from the right side of the plate that he has not disclosed. [↩]
- Other than his career-best 2013 when he was swinging so well he could get away with swinging at some bad pitches. [↩]
- thanks to brooksbaseball.net [↩]
- By the way, it passes the eye test. When Santana is batting left-handed, he takes big cuts (and I cannot lie). [↩]
40 Comments
I have to admit I have soured a bit on Santana. Only problem is, what is a better option. If our offense had more weapons, he wouldn’t be an issue, but he is our cleanup hitter but probably shouldn’t be. If he was a little more reliable at the plate, it would probably be beneficial to swap him and Brantley, but you fear the DPs and soft hits when he is up now.
yeah, that’s the thing. he’s worth his contract, but we had relied on him to be worth much more than his contract. really, 2016 will show if this season is the start of his downward trek or if it is a blip and he gets back to career norms.
Good article Bode! Thanks for the analysis. Ive defended Sannie for a while, and this season has been hard to do so.
It would be nice to revert to 2012-2014 Santana, and it can certainly happen (see, Kipnis, J 2015 season)
As fans, we get excited about guys thinking they are going to continue to get better and increase stats. Has not been happening as much lately in CLE. That and we sign FA expecting career averages or slightly below and get abysmal performance from them.
Some of this stuff and your conclusions are a little beyond my grasp. I would have concluded it’s a bat speed issue as well, and the reason that he’s still connecting ok on fastballs (albeit without power) is he’s sitting on them. Which also explains his relative helplessness on driving breaking balls this year. I would also think that the high fastballs out of the zone are the first pitches you can’t catch up to as the bat speed goes, the eye level ones your brain murmurs sweet lies about.
If it’s bat speed we’ll know next year. What all fading hitters try to do is cheat by starting their swing a tick early, and then they see nothing but breaking balls. Santana has that crazy good eye, but even he’s bound to get frustrated and itch to make contact at some point.
Open to other theories. But the heat map shows Santana has hit the high ones. Now, he might well be sitting on those 4 seam so much its masking the bat slowing down, but just wasn’t what I thought going through it all.
Whether bat speed or pitch recognition, I agree well know if it’s a more permanent thing next year.
BB King wouldn’t be so bad if he had one or two thumpers in the lineup with him. This is why I have been belaboring the point year in and year out that until this lineup has a couple long ball threats who can with one swing make up for all of the little things that don’t go wrong it pretty much won’t matter how good the starting pitching has done. You need both sides of the ball during the regular season in order to get to the playoffs where pitching and defense can trump hitting.
As far as Santana goes he’s one of the poster boy’s for the new sabremetric community who is trying to hijack baseball. Much of baseball’s appeal are the numbers but I’m sorry the “new school” statisticians have gone overboard attempting to cover all the elements of baseball. I was watching MLB Tonight last night and Harold Reynolds made my day. He said the following, “WAR is a fake statistic.” It is in effect a made up measure that has no relevance in baseball and I absolutely agree 1000%!
The problem is this team cannot afford to trade Santana unless he’s packaged and the return brings one or two serious bats. Anything else and you remain in neutral. Personally I’d love to see him traded. I think you could find another team especially a team who is in love with sabremetrics to take this guy. The problem is if the Indians do trade him they cannot miss. They have to hit a grand slam in the players they get back. Now the Indians have done pretty well when it comes to trades but I just don’t know.
Oh and I’ve seen enough of Bauer. I hope he can get back to some sort of normalcy instead of the ups and downs because I’d have him on the trade block tomorrow. Keep Kluber, Carrasco and Salazar hope that the young lefty from STL can improve quickly as well as the other drafted rookie lefty Aiken. I think that’s the future.
Cubs, Astros, Mets, Blue Jays, Rays all teams who have been heavily relying on Sabremetrics to bring their teams back to relevance (or stick around, because I still have no idea how the Rays have a better record than the Indians). Pirates did it too.
Its ok to jump into the new century, change is sometimes alright. Even good?
Hold on. You don’t need sabremetrics to know you draft young talent. The Cubs and Astros (Mr. Bode can speak well about the Astros) have been drafting at the bottom for years upon years. The Blue Jays just went out and spent a ton of money and traded for guys they didn’t build anything. The Mets finally made some trades to address the offense but they to have been stockpiling draft picks especially starting pitchers.
What is the one key word all of the teams you mentioned share? DRAFTING. What has been the Cleveland Indians biggest problem besides lack of deep pockets? DRAFTING.
But you do need sabermetrics to evaluate players. And Im almost certain Theo and the Cubs do just that. The Cardinals were one of the early teams to use sabermetrics in 2003 and have won 2 WS titles since then.
Im not saying drafting isn’t the Cleveland Indians problem. Im saying that sabermetrics can be a useful tool to evaluate future and current players.
Of course they play a role but for many of those teams you are talking about drafting players which means they don’t have MLB stats to quantify. Regardless a team like Toronto went out and acquired proven MLB talent who wasn’t one dimensional. I mean they traded for All-Stars like Tulowitzki, Donaldson and Price. I don’t think you need to quantify players such as those much right?
As for Theo we’ll see what the pay off will be right now things look bright but that team is so young it still has work left, a lot of work. The Cardinals have had a system in place for years they are probably the prototypical MLB franchise as far as a system. But lets also remember they hacked the Houston Astros too. So even the best franchises have a bit of shade involved.
I’m leaning more and more to the Indians player development system was lacking until the last few seasons even moreso than any lack in drafting (which also might have been true). Good news is that they are now recognized as having one of the better development systems.
While you don’t need to quantify all stars, the teams trading away the all stars quantify their incoming talent most likely using a form of sabermetrics.
Very true and it all starts with drafting. That’s different then quantifying current MLB players. The two worlds meet because most often in order to obtain proven MLB talent you must have drafted players with upside. The Cleveland Indians have shown they don’t draft well and that is why the current MLB roster is suffering. Thankfully you have a couple guys in Lindor and Urshella especially Lindor who look like they were worth the picks. Other then that there isn’t a lot of home grown talent which is why the Indians are who they are.
Who has recognized the Indians as having one of the better development systems?
Baseball Prospectus was the latest, but a whole bunch this season have noted it (in particular the pitching development):
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=27294
The worry is that he is now getting older and there isn’t an obvious injury (unlike Kipnis with his oblique or Yan Gomes with his knees this season).
Still, it’s baseball, so he could just be in a season-long funk against LHP.
Like many have said, Carlos Santana is still a pretty useful player to most MLB teams. Unfortunately, the Indians do not seem to be one of them. Ideally, he’d be a No. 2 hitter in a lineup with some serious power guys in the 3 and 4 spots behind him. I know Francona tried him briefly in the 2 spot this year with terrible results, but that was with a sore-backed, pre-ASB Michael Brantley and Brandon Moss “protecting” him. Put him in front of, say, Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista in Toronto and his BB’s suddenly become R’s. Plus, he’s on a very reasonable 2016 salary ($8.5M) with an additional year of team control ($12M club option in 2017 or $1.2M buyout).
I have to think a package of Santana, and two of Tyler Naquin, Jose Ramirez, Erik Gonzalez, or James Ramsey would command a pretty good return on the trade market this offseason. Joey Wendle got us Brandon Moss last winter–what can the group above net us?
I wouldn’t say terrible results. He just apparently didn’t like it (according to Francona). He has mostly been in the 2, 4, or 5 spot in the lineup this season.
2-hole(30 GS): .196/.336/.375
4-hole(59 GS): .231/.377/.385
5-hole(25 GS): .233/.303/.411
Some fluctuations, but not all that far off.
——————-
Trade markets are always interesting. Not sure the market for Carlos Santana. Hard to get back a 108 wRC+ guy making $6mil or less for him, which is what he has done this season.
Ramirez and Naquin might be valued by other organizations due to their youth. I don’t think Ramsey is worth much right now, but, as you mentioned, Wendle got us Moss, so you never know until you ask.
I didn’t see that but I just don’t see much development especially not from the minor leagues. Salazar and Allen are the only drafted and developed pitchers I see on this MLB roster. Are there others? Cody Anderson doesn’t have enough IP for me right now. But yes compared to the position players pitching is more improved.
How many position players drafted have developed? Lindor, Urshella, Kipnis then someone like Chisenhall. I mean Brantley and Santana came via trade as did Gomes.
Development and the Indians in the same sentence is a reach for me.
First, development extends beyond draft picks. Kluber, Carrasco, Gomes, Brantley, etc. came into the minor league system and were developed to reach MLB and further developed in MLB.
For draft picks though, the guys from the past few drafts are getting more highly recognized. Zimmer and Frazier the most obvious examples.
Industry is in on Indians development upgrades from the past few seasons. Whether or not it bears long-term fruit remains to be seen.
First, development extends beyond draft picks. Kluber, Carrasco, Gomes, Brantley, etc. came into the minor league system and were developed to reach MLB and further developed in MLB.
Who’s minor league system? Don’t give me an Indians-like answer.
For draft picks though, the guys from the past few drafts are getting more highly recognized. Zimmer and Frazier the most obvious examples.
The past few drafts key words.
Industry is in on Indians development upgrades from the past few seasons. Whether or not it bears long-term fruit remains to be seen.
When you are near the bottom it’s not hard to improve. Well unless you are the football team in Cleveland.
2-hole(30 GS): .196/.336/.375
4-hole(59 GS): .231/.377/.385
5-hole(25 GS): .233/.303/.411
Some fluctuations, but not all that far off.
Not terrible? I say you have lost perspective.
Great write-up, thank you.
I think Carlos is not seeing the ball properly. Especially on curves. I think that his reputation for having a good eye at the plate has created a halo-effect for him that results in umpires not giving pitchers the benefit of the doubt on borderline pitches. If you could compare his walk/ball count versus “average” pitching as opposed to “good” pitching it’d be much a much higher than expected bump based on what I have seen this season.
I don’t know that he gets that same benefit of the doubt next season as his numbers from this year start to catch up with the officiating crews.
Comparing his 2-hole hitting to the other spots. It’s not like he completely cratered just because he was hitting in the second spot.
Yes, he was hitting sub-Mendoza line, but he also was getting on base quite a bit still, which is even more important from that spot.
With how he has been hitting this season, I’m happier to have him 6th or lower, but that requires Lonnie, Yan, or others to step up their hitting. Just as likely that Carlos is the one to rebound to his career norms.
I forgot to give you the hat-tip for making sure that I didn’t let this one slip through the “article thought” cracks. Allow me to promote your comment to featured to make up for that mistake. And, thanks.
I agree though he still has a “good eye” at the plate for recognizing strikes, but that is different than a “good eye” for recognizing pitch types. There are some statistics that show how many “outside” pitches get called balls/strikes for pitchers. It is likely possible to invert those stats to see the same for hitters (which hitters get most strikes called balls on them).
That would be interesting to see as well.
By the way, I am curious if this write-up has changed your opinion of Carlos and his relative value at all? For me it quantifies what is wrong with him but the conclusion seems to be, “Let’s hope he gets better, not worse, next year.”
We will just have to agree to disagree any other player with those numbers and you’d be saying what’s wrong with this guy. I don’t know what Santana’s problems are but it’s not like this is anything new. The good news is he still has a month left to get hot when it doesn’t matter that way at the end of the year when you review you can say his numbers for the season weren’t that bad.
Oh and lets not talk about him defensively. He can’t catch anymore. He can’t play third. And now it appears he can’t play first either. As soon as all he can do is DH his value is even less. He should have been traded. Oh well.
*ahem* please note the title of the article.
I am not saying that Carlos Santana hasn’t underwhelmed at all. I am saying that the position he has batted in the lineup hasn’t mattered.
I diverge in these Bode Plot articles in that I try to make them as objective as possible unlike my other writings where I throw my opinion/bias around.
Doing the research really highlighted the drop-off in power vs. LHP. I knew it was bad, but *THAT* bad didn’t seem possible. He’s basically Michael Bourn with more walks against LHP in 2015.
So, from that standpoint, yes, digging and figuring out those things and seeing the pitch specific issues has changed my opinion in that I understand it is possible that he has some fundamental aging flaws that he might or might not come back to where he was.
Overall though, my opinion that we cannot get his production for his value by trading him did not change. And, the possibility (since I don’t know the cause) of him returning to his career norms is still there for me. I think the chances of him repeating 2013 are more slim now, but 2012 or 2014 still seems a possibility.
Also, I tend to be an optimist 🙂
Oh I saw the title…still looking for an answer. I guess what Hopwin wrote below was different somehow or maybe you just like it better from him.
THANK YOU.
I guess you liked what Hopwin wrote better since he basically shares the same sentiment as me but each to their own. Trade Santana. Have a nice day!
I feel like Bode and I are just musing. Not really recommending a course or action.
Nothing personal Sham. Hop asked a specific question (did my opinion change) and I answered. You called out Santana as terrible and said we need to trade him, with which I disagree (and that is noted in my answer to Hop as well). Don’t read into it any more than what it is.
I didn’t take it personally just pointing something out is all. As far as Santana goes I never said he was terrible but I did say his numbers are terrible. And yes I fully believe he should be traded because I see him regressing both in the field and in the batters box despite what you may think. Of course this doesn’t mean you trade him for a bucket of balls but yes I would look to move him if I could bring back younger talent which could be developed.
The counter point is that we have some young talent coming up the pipe (Zimmer, Frazier, etc.), but we need someone to produce in 2016.
I am not above trading any player if you get a big return, but we obviously have different ideas on what a fair return for Santana would be.
lol at “I hate statistics” + “agree 1000%”
Here’s the problem with Santana: he was declared a plus hitter years ago when he hit the ball well as a catcher. It was a super-extra bonus to have that kind productivity on offense out of your catcher. Bode touched on it a little, but the fact is that the hitter who is supposed to be one of the top 3 hitters in our lineup is a below-average offensive first basemen. The fact he came up as a catcher has led to him being overrated offensively the last few years.